Entrance doors and building materials for house walls around the entrance, external claddings of elevators, etc. are often covered with a decorated sheet in order to impart durability or design attractiveness thereto. Hitherto, materials obtained by covering a molded resin article, plywood, wooden board, metal plate or the like with a flexible vinyl chloride resin sheet (hereinafter referred to also as flexible PVC sheet) to which an embossed design has been imparted, or coated metal plates and the like have been used as building materials for use in such applications. Furthermore, as materials having a printed design, use has been made of materials having a configuration obtained by printing an acrylic sheet to which an ultraviolet absorber has been added and laminating a flexible PVC sheet to the acrylic sheet.
Flexible PVC sheets have various excellent features. In recent years, however, use of the vinyl chloride resins have come to be restricted because of the problem concerning heavy-metal compounds due to some of the stabilizers for the vinyl chloride resins, the problem concerning VOCs or endocrine disruption due to some of the plasticizers or stabilizers, the problem that the resins generate hydrogen chloride gas and other chlorine-containing gases during combustion, etc.
Under these circumstances, a resin sheet-covered metal plate having high surface hardness and produced using a polyester resin as a resin sheet substitute for the flexible PVC sheet, a resin sheet-covered metal plate which conforms to a plenty of color designs and is produced using a polyolefin resin, and the like have been proposed.
Furthermore, a resin sheet which includes an aromatic polycarbonate resin as a main component and which is excellent in terms of weatherability or embossability has been proposed.
The sheet described in patent document 1 has improved weatherability imparted thereto by incorporating a specific ultraviolet absorber into the aromatic polycarbonate resin.
The sheet described in patent document 2 includes a resin layer constituted of a transparent resin which contains specific glittering particles as an underlayer of a transparent aromatic polycarbonate resin layer. This sheet has been thereby made to have a glittering design.
The sheet described in patent document 3 has improved embossability imparted thereto by blending an aromatic polycarbonate resin with a polyester resin and thereby attaining an increase in tensile modulus.